Haunted House (video game)
A 1982 Atari 2600 adventure with player-controlled scrolling.
Haunted House is a 1982 adventure game from Atari, Inc., made for the Atari 2600. The player sees the world through a pair of glowing eyes in the dark, moving through a mansion to find three pieces of a magic urn and bring them back to the front door. It was one of the first video games to let the player control the scrolling between large sections of the screen. The game is single-player. The goal is to collect three randomly placed urn fragments from 24 rooms across four floors and return them to the entrance. The player can light and blow out matches to reveal items and areas. *How to Win at Video Games* called it a "storyline" game, similar to Atari's earlier titles *Superman* (1979) and *Adventure* (1980). Tim Onosko of *The Capital Times* agreed, describing it as an adventure that forces players to learn rules, gather items, and reach a goal as they play. The player has nine lives and can only carry one object at a time, swapping by touching another. The player can traverse through different doors that ascend or descend a level, but none permit the player to go in both directions. Enemies include vampire bats, tarantulas, and a ghost; touching any costs a life. There are nine difficulty settings. On setting 1, one room is lit by matches while the rest are dark. Higher settings add locked doors that require a hidden master key, extra enemies, and abilities like bats stealing a carried item and dropping it somewhere else. A scepter can be found that stops enemies from chasing the player on most levels, but the ghost still pursues on higher difficulties regardless. Development was led by programmer James Andreasen, a University of Colorado graduate who had worked at MSI and Atari. Early working titles were *Mystery Mansion* and *Graves Manor*. The game used the Atari 2600's Television Interface Adaptor (TIA) for sound and graphics, which authors Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost called a programming challenge because it allowed only a few unique features. The system couldn't render graphics, so programmers had to draw every frame by hand. Like *Raiders of the Lost Ark* (1982), the environments were hard-designed and loaded into the game, unlike *Pitfall!* (1982) where worlds were generated by code. To save memory for randomly placed items, the urn pieces' locations were generated using polynomial counters that counted in unusual orders.
Quick Facts
- Title
- Haunted House
- Developer
- Atari, Inc.
- Platforms
- Atari 2600
- Released
- February 1982
- Genre
- Adventure
- Modes
- Single player
- Programmer
- James Andreasen
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
Haunted House was programmed by James Andreasen, a graduate of the University of Colorado in Boulder who worked as a software engineer at MSI and Atari. Working titles included Mystery Mansion and Graves Manor. The game was developed for the Atari 2600, which used the Television Interface Adaptor (TIA) for sound and graphics, a programming challenge that forced programmers to draw each frame entirely. To save memory for randomly placed items, the locations of urn pieces were generated through polynomial counters. Sound effects included footstep sounds for stairway ascent and descent, created using percussion sounds due to the TIA's limited frequency range. The game's cover art and manual art were created by Steve Hendricks, who stated that the manual art was initially intended for the cover but was rejected by marketing due to the placement of eyes over the chest of the person. Haunted House was released in February 1982 and later re-released in compilations such as Atari 80 in One for Windows (2003), Atari Anthology for PlayStation 2 and Xbox (2004), Atari Greatest Hits for Nintendo DS and iOS, Atari 50 (2022), and a 10 Games in 1 cartridge for the Atari 2600+ (2023).
Reader's Guide
Haunted House received positive reviews from contemporary publications such as The Space Gamer and Electronic Games, while others like How to Win at Home Video Games noted its difficulty and lack of intuitiveness. Cashbox reported it as one of the top-selling video games by July 1982. Critics such as Christopher Buecheler of GameSpy called it one of the earliest examples of the survival horror genre due to its horror themes, limited item management, and variety of monsters. However, other studies suggested it lacked specific elements that later games like Alone in the Dark (1992) and Resident Evil (1996) established to define the genre. In 1995, Flux magazine ranked it #68 on its list of 'Top 100 Video Games'. Buecheler included it in GameSpy's 'Hall of Fame' in December 2002. Brett Weiss gave it an 'honorable mention' in his book The 100 Greatest Console Video Games 1977-1987 (2014). A retrospective review in Game Informer (2005) noted that Haunted House contained many gameplay elements later found in survival horror games despite lacking visual polish.
Did You Know?
- Haunted House was among the first video games to use player-controlled scrolling between large portions of the visual space.
- The cover art was initially intended to use the manual art, but was rejected by marketing due to the placement of eyes over the chest.
- The locations of the urn pieces are generated through polynomial counters to save memory.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Haunted House (video game)?
It is a 1982 single-player adventure title for the Atari 2600, created and released by Atari, Inc. You explore a pitch-black mansion by controlling a pair of luminous eyes, hunting down hidden objects room by room.
How do you win Haunted House?
You need to find three scattered shards of an enchanted urn hidden across 24 rooms on four different floors, then carry all three back to the entrance. Lighting a match briefly illuminates the surroundings so you can spot items, and blowing it out resets the view.
Who made Haunted House?
James Andreasen handled the programming, and Steve Hendricks created the cover illustration. Atari, Inc. served as both the developer and the publisher.
What made Haunted House innovative for its time?
It introduced player-driven scrolling, letting you pan the view across a mansion far larger than what fit on screen at any single moment. That was a rare feature on 1980s console games and set it apart from most fixed-screen titles of the era.
What are Haunted House's release details?
The game hit stores in February 1982 on the Atari 2600. It was produced and distributed entirely by Atari, Inc., with no third-party involvement.
More in Video Games of the 1980s, Part 1 1-24
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